Sunday, November 18, 2012

Abiogenesis is Not Science

In my
last post, I spent a good deal of time explaining that even events of
the past can only be studied scientifically in the present. The past
cannot be repeated but many mundane events can be repeated so even if
we can't repeat one, particular event, we can still compare it to
similar events that we can observe. For example, comparing
fingerprints of suspects to the fingerprints found at a crime scene
is a scientific method that can be repeated and tested even though
any particular crime cannot be repeated. However, if some event were
absolutely unique – that is, it happened only once and nothing like
it has ever happened since – then how could we study it? We can't, scientifically.
If something were unobserved and if there is no way to repeat it, in
simply cannot be examined with a scientific method that demands
repeatability. Therefore, such an event is outside of the realm of
scientific inquiry.

I
believe Abiogenesis is such an event. Abiogenesis has never
been observed. Ever. It not only does not occur in nature, we have
also not been able to create life in a lab. If it happened, we missed it. Neither have we ever seen anything like it. Any idea about how it happened is merely speculation. It's a guess. There is no scientific "theory" of abiogenesis.

Once
upon a time, people believed in such a thing as “spontaneous
generation.” They believed that maggots simply sprang out of
rotting meat and mice were born out of bags of grain. They
eventually discovered the true origins of these higher forms of life
but the belief in the spontaneous generation of “simple”
organisms – like an amoeba – endured to the time of Darwin.

Louise
Pasteur challenged the idea of spontaneous generation and tested
supposed examples where people believed it occurred. He discovered
that when water clouded, it was because of the multiplication of
microscopic organisms that were already present in the water. He
established the Law
of Biogenesis that basically says life comes from other life.

The
idea of abiogenesis is simply a fancier name for spontaneous
generation. It is still the idea that life came from non-life. So
abiogenesis has not only never been observed, it is a throw back to
an idea that was discarded by science not too long after
blood-letting was. It cannot be studied by the scientific method
because it is not observed, testable, or repeatable. It's worse than
science fiction; it is a fairy tale.

The
other thing about abiogenesis is that, even if we someday create life
in the lab, there is still no way to know if that was THE way it
supposedly happened billions of years ago. If I invented a clever
way to stack large stones, for example, it doesn't mean that's
exactly how the builders of Stone Henge did it. What's more, if we
created artificial life, it's not even evidence that abiogenesis ever
occurred. In my opinion, the simple fact that it does not occur
naturally but can only be created by design (if we ever create it at
all) is evidence for my theory!

So
let's sum up: Abiogenesis cannot be studied with the scientific
method. It has never been observed. It cannot be repeated. It
cannot be tested. Does that cover it?

Abiogenesis
is the god of the gaps to evolutionists. There is no scientific
evidence for it. It only exists in theory because the “natural
only” premise of evolution demands it. It's not science. It's not
even close.

10 comments:

First, Auguste Comte, 19th-century positivist philosopher, is notorious in some circles for offering, as an example of a question of fact that science could never solve, the composition of the stars. Stellar spectroscopy was discovered a few years later.

Of course, stellar spectroscopy involves observations in the present, yet is used to infer the composition of stars in the unobserved past, when that light was supposedly emitted. Perhaps you deny that we can in fact know what stars are made of, or perhaps you hold that we can know this for, e.g. stars within 6000 light years of Earth, but not for more distant stars.

Second, "evolutionists" are keenly aware that showing that something could have happened one way does not prove that it did happen that way. Some years back, on the Talk.Origins newsgroup, one poster managed to shock even the "evolutionist" contingent by telling an ID proponent that "we can criticize ideas as 'just-so stories'; you don't get to." But his point was that creationism, or ID, depends on the argument that certain events cannot possibly happen naturally. Pointing out that there might be more than one way they could happen naturally doesn't really bolster the creationist case. But it is dangerous to assume that what has not been observed or discovered thus far never will or can be.

It seems to me that, e.g. research into the possible origins of RNA by researchers at the University of Manchester, or into the ability of some RNA sequences to copy themselves without the aid of proteins by researchers at the Scripps Institute, come closer to observing and testing abiogenesis than we are ever likely to get to studying or testing special creation.

Third, "the experiment was intelligently designed; therefore the process observed must require intelligent design" seems to assume that intelligence magically alters the laws of nature. If we generate electrical discharges in the laboratory, does that mean that every lightning bolt is supernaturally created? If we create condensation in a lab, does this prove that rain really falls from supercelestial reservoirs through literal floodgates in the sky? If an experiment attempts to recreate, based on observations, conditions that do or might exist in nature, does that prove that such conditions can only exist if artificially created?

Fourth, "abiogenesis" means simply the origin of life from non-living material, by whatever means. It need not involve the idea that living organisms -- even individual living cells -- can arise full-formed under current conditions (note that the modern world is full of bacteria and other single-celled organisms that would eat any products of abiogenesis if it is going on today; we wouldn't see new living organisms being produced if it were happening).

Fifth, would you care to discuss common ancestry and descent with modification in some future post about "evolutionists?"

Unfortunately for the naturalist, abiogenesis is all they have. They refuse to investigate whether or not there could be a god because they have no interest in being accountable to anyone but themselves. Although they will never admit this, accountability to authority is usually the underlying reason for their 'disbelief.' It's much easier to say 'there isn't enough evidence for the God of the Bible' than it is to say 'even if the God of the Bible does exist, I have no interest in Him or His desires for my life.' Of course, the guise of 'not enough evidence' has the added benefit of making the naturalist appear intellectual, feeding the very ego that is in rebellion.

The sad thing is, many naturalists that I have met aren't even aware that this is what is happening. Yet when you look at their lives, the evidence is pretty clear that their past experiences of emotional neglect, abusive authority, physical abuse, bullying, imposed legalism, betrayal, etc. have never been dealt with, processed, and healed. They've been hardwired into a state of non-belief and can only be reached by God's grace.

First, stars are observed in the present. When we see the light from distant stars, we are seeing it as it arrives. We do not see the “millions of years” it supposedly took the light to reach us. If scientists believe we can learn the composition of a star by examining the light emitted by it, others can repeat the same experiments on other stars and perhaps agree with or disprove their conclusion. It's repeatable and testable. That's science.

Second, you said, “it is dangerous to assume that what has not been observed or discovered thus far never will or can be.” So, do you think it is possible that someday we will observe the alleged first ancestor of all living things? Surely you can see how impossible that is.

Third, miracles by definition act outside of the laws of nature. That is how we can tell the difference between a miraculous event and a mundane one. It is precisely because I know that water cannot turn into wine that I know the Jesus performed a miracle. By turning water into wine, Jesus demonstrated His sovereignty over nature and thus His own divinity. If Jesus were limited to operating within natural laws, then He would be subject to His creation rather than the Lord of it.

Fourth, I know what abiogenesis is. What I don't understand is the exact distinction between abiogenesis and spontaneous generation. After centuries of experimentation, scientists have determined spontaneous generation is impossible. However, evolutionary scientists still cling to spontaneous generation's flimsy alias known as abiogenesis.

Fifth, I believe I have discussed common ancestry and descent with modification on at least a few occasions already. However, I'm not sure what they have to do with this post. Even so, I'll probably come around to them again sometime. Is there something in particular you'd like to know about them?

I've written before about the sheer contradiction that is secular science. On several occasions, I've posted a quote from Scientific American that says the fundamental tenet of science is methodological naturalism where scientists seek testable, observable, and natural explanations for any phenomenon. However, they have no scientific reason why this must be so!! They admit it's a tenet – a philosophical assumption akin to a religious belief.

Their confidence in their natural-only brand of science has always amused me. In all seriousness they affirm that even though they don't know how the first life form began, they KNOW God didn't create it because that's not scientific!! Doesn't that just make you want to chuckle?

I wouldn't paint so broad a brush as to say all evolutionists are God-haters. However, I have said the god of evolution is an impotent god who is indistinguishable from dumb luck. Theistic evolutionists tend to be quick to compromise on other doctrine as well since their view of the glorious God of creation is dimmed by the clumsy method of creation they believe He chose.

I agree that all evolutionists are not God-haters. I hope my post didn't infer that. My father is an evolutionist, but he's very respectful of my beliefs. I myself believed in God before I became a Christian, but my heart was in full rebellion to Christ just as I believe my father's still is. It's like standing in front of Christ on the cross and saying, "I can appreciate what you're doing, but I don't want to change. I like my life and my beliefs the way they are."

Steven J, you said, "note that the modern world is full of bacteria and other single-celled organisms that would eat any products of abiogenesis if it is going on today; we wouldn't see new living organisms being produced if it were happening."

I see explanations like this to be very circular, as if to say, "abiogenesis no longer occurs because evolution has determined that it will not." It just seems to be another attempt to explain away the lack of evidence.

You also mentioned that we've not really come close to being able to study and test special creation. You're assuming a priori that all knowledge is obtained only through methodological naturalism. The theist can rely on science as well as logic, intuition, and spiritual guidance.

Regarding your first point, of course different scientists can repeat observations of starlight. But any conclusions about the star that light comes from depends on the assumption of the uniformity of nature. If we can't assume that [a] light travels at a constant velocity and [b] the light we see was actually emitted by stars rather than exnihilated in transit, then we have no reason to suppose that the absorbtion spectra of that light tells us anything about the composition of the star. And if we are justified in assuming that, e.g. bands corresponding to the absorbtion spectrum of carbon indicate carbon in the star, then we're justified in assuming that light from a star two million light years away took two million years to get here.

Regarding your second point, again, the difficulties of time travel apply indifferently to abiogenesis and arson investigations. My point was that finding naturalistic mechanisms for abiogenesis is not something you can count on never happening.

Regarding your third, David Hume, after pointing out that in virtually any case, it is more reasonable to suppose that a miracle report is wrong than that the laws of nature were suspended (simply because we have vastly more experience with false reports than with miracles), noted that until we know all the laws of nature, we can't say for sure that even something that can be shown to have happened really violated the laws of nature. "An unknown supernatural cause" is not automatically more plausible than "an unknown natural cause."

Regarding your fourth point, abiogenesis theories assume that either metabolism or self-replication can exist without complete living organisms (even organisms as relatively simple as bacteria). Spontaneous generation assumes going directly from nonliving matter to organisms; abiogenesis research assumes that there are intermediate steps.

Regarding your fifth point, it's just that "you share common ancestors with lemurs and lampreys" does not say anything about how the very first living things came about; evolutionary theory could be entirely true even if naturalistic abiogenesis is impossible.

"On several occasions, I've posted a quote from Scientific American that says the fundamental tenet of science is methodological naturalism where scientists seek testable, observable, and natural explanations for any phenomenon. However, they have no scientific reason why this must be so!! They admit it's a tenet – a philosophical assumption akin to a religious belief. "

You state that abiogenesis is not science, or a subject for science, because the origins of life cannot be observed. That is, it is not enough to be able to test ideas in the present; you must be able to actually see them in real time for them to be "science." Yet you find absurdly and irrationally restrictive the idea that scientific theories ought to be testable in some way and ought to involve forces that we can examine in the lab. This is a less restrictive standard than the one you use to rule abiogenesis out of bounds.

"Natural," in the sense of "methodological naturalism," means simply "stuff you can do science to." On your own grounds, miracles are excluded because you can't replicate, e.g. the methods Jesus might have used to turn water into wine (it's not just that, as with abiogenesis, if you find one way, he might have used a different way; you're asserting that he did in fact use a non-natural, supernatural way).

God in the Bible is supposed to be in charge of history; He raises up kings and emperors, or sets the Babylonians on a campaign to conquer Judah and sack Jerusalem. Yet one must suppose that the Romans or Babylonians themselves could provide purely secular, "natural" accounts of how a Nebuchadnezzer or a Nero ended up on the throne and why they went about their various businesses. If the God of evolution is hard to tell from dumb luck, the God of history is frequently not easily distinguishable from dumb luck, either. This is either a call for a rather subtler God of wider-ranging interests or a more general problem with theism than that provided by evolution (even in the broadest sense of "evolution") alone.

You said, “any conclusions about the star that light comes from depends on the assumption of the uniformity of nature.”

I admit that the distant starlight problem is a serious objection to young earth creationism but it's a little off subject of this post and you seem to be using it as a red herring. Regardless, though, I'll chase it for a second.

Science has no rational reason to expect uniformity in nature. If natural laws are undesigned and purposeless, then on what grounds do you expect them to be the same everywhere? Uniformity in nature is a philosophical assumption on your part that ultimately cannot be tested because we cannot go everywhere to see how natural laws operate there.

Besides that, is TIME uniform? We already know that it's not because time is effected by gravity. For example, someone near the event horizon of a black hole will experience time differently than someone on earth. Depending on the conditions of the early universe, “millions of years” in space might have passed in only a few thousand years on earth.

The problem is, we can't “repeat” the millions of years and so the debate will continue.

You said, “Regarding your second point, again, the difficulties of time travel apply indifferently to abiogenesis and arson investigations. My point was that finding naturalistic mechanisms for abiogenesis is not something you can count on never happening.”

Except of course that we can always start fires and study them while we still have not created life. Besides, finding a “naturalistic mechanism” for abiogenesis not only isn't that it happened that way, it's not even evidence that it happened at all. Suppose I published a belief that aliens once built a one mile tall building on earth and, contrary to everything we know about engineering, I manage to build a one mile tall building. Is my building evidence for my theory?

You said, “David Hume, after pointing out that in virtually any case, it is more reasonable to suppose that a miracle report is wrong than that the laws of nature were suspended.”

Well bully for David Hume but I refuse to accept the premise that miracles don't occur because they're unreasonable. Jesus walking on waters, turning water into wine, feeding thousands with a few fish, raising Lazarus from the dead after 4 days, and ultimately raising Himself from the dead are all miracles. Hume's view that we should start by assuming that walking on water has a natural explanation sounds to me to be unreasonable.

You said, "An unknown supernatural cause" is not automatically more plausible than "an unknown natural cause."”

But science takes the position that an unknown cause cannot ever be a supernatural cause. Where is the scientific evidence for such a position? There isn't any. If you don't know the cause is, you cannot credibly argue what the cause isn't.

“”Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms.”

I admit that abiogenesis is a natural mechanism but please explain to me exactly how it is observed or testable? While you're at it, please provide me the objective, scientific evidence that supports the idea that we should only seek natural mechanisms. And what is the scientific theory that says only what is natural is true? Finally, look up the word “tenet.” Why is science, which boasts that it only seeks empirical evidence, built upon a philosophical foundation that is fundamentally a religious belief?

Secular science is shifting sand. It's own premise contradicts itself. It cannot stand up to scrutiny.

I'm sorry it took a while to respond to your latest comment. You did not say that evolutionists are God-haters and I didn't mean to imply that you had.

I have said before, and I believe you would agree, that evolution does not mix well with Christianity. Evolution is a clumsy, purposeless, cruel way to create. To believe in evolution is to insult the character of God. People who embrace evolution necessarily, though maybe not intentionally, diminish the creator God and replace Him with an impotent god who couldn't create a stiff breeze.

“Rebellious” is a good word to describe the attitudes of these people.

RKBentley

About me

I'm a husband, a father, and a Christian. Being a Christian is not something I do on Sundays but rather it is who I am. My faith influences everything I do. Christians are commanded to always be ready to give an answer – a reason for the hope that is in us. I take that command seriously. Psalm 19:7 says that the testimony of the LORD is sure. If we base all of our thinking on the Bible, we can't go wrong. I started this blog to encourage other Christians and challenge critics on a variety of issues. Whether you agree or disagree with me, you're welcome here. Please follow me on Twitter and friend me on FaceBook! God bless!!